NEW YORK | Wherever CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta goes, he’s followed by the g-word. That’s grandstand. He even heard it jokingly when he met Ted Olson, who was part of the legal team that beat back President Donald Trump’s attempt last year to pull Acosta’s reporting pass.
It’s usually no laughing matter. While Trump’s detractors love Acosta’s willingness to talk back to the president, supporters seethe.
The criticism rankles Acosta, but he’s not backing down. He’s written a book that steals Trump’s derisive phrase for journalists he doesn’t like — “The Enemy of the People” — and tries to throw it back at him.
Acosta said White House reporters never expected to spend so much of their time fact-checking a presidential election, but he thinks they’ve done it well.
